=head1 NAME
perlbook - Books about and related to Perl
=head1 DESCRIPTION
There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are
good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. There is a list
of these books, some with extensive reviews, at http://books.perl.org/
. We list some of the books here, and while listing a book implies our
endorsement, don't think that not including a book means anything.
Most of these books are available online through Safari Books Online
( http://safaribooksonline.com/ ).
=head2 The most popular books
The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is
I:
=over 4
=item I (the "Camel Book"):
by Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall with Jon Orwant
ISBN 978-0-596-00492-7 [4th edition February 2012]
ISBN 978-1-4493-9890-3 [ebook]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004927
=back
The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to
accomplish specific tasks:
=over 4
=item I (the "Ram Book"):
by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
with Foreword by Larry Wall
ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/
=back
If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the
Llama book, which assumes that you already know a little about
programming:
=over 4
=item I (the "Llama Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018452
=back
The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which
introduces the intermediate features of references, data structures,
object-oriented programming, and modules:
=over 4
=item I (the "Alpaca Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
foreword by Damian Conway
ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920012689/
=back
=head2 References
You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard:
=over 4
=item I
by Johan Vromans
ISBN 978-1-4493-0370-9 [5th edition July 2011]
ISBN 978-1-4493-0813-1 [ebook]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018476/
=item I
by Richard Foley
ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005030/
=item I
by Tony Stubblebine
ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [July 2007]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514273/
=back
=head2 Tutorials
=over 4
=item I
by James Lee
ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010]
http://www.apress.com/9781430227939
=item I
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
ISBN 978-0-596-52010-6 [5th edition June 2008]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106
=item I (the "Alpaca Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
foreword by Damian Conway
ISBN 0-596-10206-2 [1st edition March 2006]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102067
=item I
by brian d foy
ISBN 978-0-596-10206-7 [1st edition July 2007]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242
=item I
by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy
ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010]
http://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/
=back
=head2 Task-Oriented
=over 4
=item I
by Sam Tregar
ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002]
http://www.apress.com/9781590590188
=item I
by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
with foreword by Larry Wall
ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [2nd edition August 2003]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135
=item I
by David N. Blank-Edelman
ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396
=item I
by Linchi Shea
ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
http://www.apress.com/9781590590973
=back
=head2 Special Topics
=over 4
=item I
by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
ISBN 978-0-596-52069-4 [May 2009]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520694
=item I
by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998
=item I
by Damian Conway
ISBN: 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735
=item I
by Mark-Jason Dominus
ISBN: 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
http://hop.perl.plover.com/
=item I
by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126
=item I
by Lincoln Stein
ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page
=item I
by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767
=item I
by Damian Conway
with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
http://www.manning.com/conway/
=item I
by Dave Cross
ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
http://www.manning.com/cross
=item I
by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162
=item I
by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
http://www.manning.com/jenness
=item I
by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005]
http://www.apress.com/9781590594544
=back
=head2 Free (as in beer) books
Some of these books are available as free downloads.
I: http://hop.perl.plover.com/
=head2 Other interesting, non-Perl books
You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of
ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major
Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
=over 4
=item I
by Jon Bentley
ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
=item I
by Jon Bentley
ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
=back
=head2 A note on freshness
Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at
the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book
lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list
was included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest
released version at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html .
Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet
scale, but we've included those books because they still describe the
current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day.
Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and
techniques that are still valid today. In general though, we try to
limit this list to books published in the past five years.
=head2 Get your book listed
If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know.
=cut